As for desktop personal computers, their expansion is ordinarily carried out by inserting an expansion board in the body of the computers. As for the PC/AT or PC/AT-compatible personal computers, their expansion is ordinarily carried out to insert an expansion board based on so-called ISA bus standard into a bus slot. As for notebook-sized portable personal computers, an expansion board for the desktop personal computers can be installed by means of connecting an expansion box such as a docking-station.
Recently, the PCMCIA standard is established, and models that can be extended by inserting an IC card (called a PC card) suitable for this standard into the card slot are in the market.
In the case where the expansion is carried out by inserting the expansion board in the body like the desktop computers, a case of the body must be opened. This is troublesome and a difficult work for persons not having any knowledge of computer.
As for the portable personal computer, its advantage of portability was lost very much if it is connected to a docking-station, and extra expense is required to purchase the docking station.
An expansion method of inserting an IC card in accord with the PCMCIA standard into the card slot requires to purchase an expansion board for newly additional expansion, because a desktop computer does not ordinarily support the card slot. The PCMCIA standard has some restrictions of IC card size because it has been derived from the expansion memory cards. Therefore, the expansions with the IC card are limited.
To solve these problems, it is an object of the present inventions to provide I/O expansion devices for additional inputs and outputs without inserting the expansion board in the bus slot and inserting the IC card into the card slot, and apparatus and methods applying the devices.
And it is an object of the present inventions to apply for various uses and provide highly portable personal computers, by means of inserting into the body of the computers like the IC card to apply the I/O expansion device to them.